萬國法律事務所

To help disabled citizens, the Taiwan tax office announced on March 2, 2016 that starting this year, more aiding facilities will be eligible for tax deduction for disabled persons.

Tax officials expressed that subject to the Income Tax Act, medical expenses are already deductible; however, payments for many aid devices are not regarded as medical expenses. Such aid devices include items such as automatic beds and wheelchairs. Therefore, the tax office decided to make more aid devices used by disabled eligible for tax deduction so that their taxable income can be reduced. Nonetheless, because the Government provides certain amounts of subsidy for such aid devices, only the difference between such subsidy and the price of a device can be deductible.

Another tax measure worthy of note is related to the E-commerce sales tax. Tax officials pointed out that as increasingly more on-line sellers are making profits from on-line business, the tax office stipulated new regulations titled “Sales Tax and Income Tax Rules for On-line Transactions.”

According to the new regulations, as long as a seller sells goods or services on-line, such transactions will be taxable. However, if a person sells his personal second-hand items on-line, such sales are not taxable.

On the other hand, on-line businesses will be required to comply with the laws and regulations of business registration. But, if the sales amount of goods is less than NTD80,000 or that of service is less than NTD40,000, the business registration requirement is exempted temporarily.